this week in art

TATIANA TROUVÉ: DESIRE LINES

Tatiana Trouvé’s “Desire Lines” reimagines the pathways of Central Park into spools of rope (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Scholar’s Gate, Doris C. Freedman Plaza
Central Park entrance, 60th St. & Fifth Ave.
Through August 30, free
www.publicartfund.org
desire lines slideshow

Paris-based Italian artist Tatiana Trouvé gives 212 pathways in Central Park sculptural form in “Desire Lines.” For her first public exhibition in the United States, Trouvé has mapped out the length of these trails, turning each one into a wooden spool of colored rope stacked together on three metal storage racks at the Scholar’s Gate entrance to the park at Doris C. Freedman Plaza on Sixtieth St. and Fifth Ave. Ranging from about sixty feet to four miles, each length of rope has a name selected by Trouvé to represent the landscape of the park as well as political and artistic statements involving walking, making the time and space of the park tactile, something you can actually touch. Among the names of the spools are “[P063] From East 84th Street to the Reservoir’s south gate house: Belo Monte Protest,” referencing the 1989 marches in Brazil against the Belo Monte Dam; “[P032] From Warriors’ Gate to Artisans’ Gate via West Drive: Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom,” paying tribute to the 1957 civil rights demonstration at which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “Give Us the Ballot” speech; “[P147] From Cedar Hill towards Miners’ Gate: I’m Walking,” a nod to Fats Domino; “[P025] A detour to the West Drive boat landing: Narcoturismo,” an homage to Francis Alÿs; “[P044] From Scholar’s Gate, around the Dairy and past Cop Cot: Hands Up Walk Out,” calling out specifically the shooting death of Michael Brown and other unarmed men by the police; and “[P062] From Strangers’ Gate to the Great Hill: May 10, 1968, Paris,” referring to the violent student protests in France.

Tatiana Trouvé’s “Desire Lines” honors artistic statements and political protests involving walking (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

There are also spools that represent Lou Reed, David Hammons, the Ronettes, Charles Baudelaire, Yoko Ono, the Pixies, Janet Cardiff, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Selma to Montgomery March, and the 1913 Woman Suffrage Parade. Two of the three racks consist of rope of different colors, from blues, grays, and purples to pinks, yellows, and greens (one stack features bright colors, the other more muted hues), while the third is limited to spools of black rope only. Besides being pretty to look at, “Desire Lines” encourages you to walk through the park, a rather healthy activity, following in the footsteps of others, while also reminding you that taking to the streets in marches can have an effect on the world. Central Park can be a daunting space, but Trouvé, whose previous work has incorporated such objects as mattresses, shoes, rocks, gym equipment, and stoves, makes it all the more accessible in this appealing, colorful, and poetic three-dimensional atlas.

CROSSING THE LINE 2015

Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson will present CHAMBRE as part of FIAFs annual Crossing the Line festival (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson will present the glittering CHAMBRE as part of FIAF’s annual Crossing the Line festival (photo by Julieta Cervantes)

French Institute Alliance Française and other locations
Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
FIAF Gallery, 22 East 60th St. between Madison & Park Aves.
September 10 – October 4, free – $35
212-355-6160
www.fiaf.org

Tickets are now available for FIAF’s ninth annual late summer/early fall multidisciplinary arts festival, and you better act fast if you want to see some of this year’s most intriguing programs. For us, the highlight is Jack Ferver and Marc Swanson’s Chambre, an installation and performance piece at the New Museum inspired by Jean Genet’s The Maids and pop-culture elements, with extravagant costumes by Reid Bartelme and experimental sound and music by twi-ny fave Roarke Menzies. British artist Ant Hampton’s Autoteatro series continues with The Extra People, in which participants will go on an individual adventure through FIAF’s Florence Gould Theater. The U.S. premiere of Brazilian artist Gustavo Ciriaco and Austrian artist Andrea Sonnberger’s Here whilst we walk will take small groups, bound by a giant rubber band, on a silent trip through Red Hook. Elana Langer’s free What I Live By will pop up at three locations, examining brand identification and personal values. Iranian artist Ali Moini searches for freedom in the multimedia dance work Lives at New York Live Arts (NYLA). Miguel Gutierrez will present the New York City premiere of all three parts of his Age & Beauty series, Mid-Career Artist/Suicide Note or &:-/; Asian Beauty @ the Werq Meeting or The Choreographer & Her Muse or &:@&; and Dancer or You can make whatever the fuck you want but you’ll only tour solos or The Powerful People or We are strong/We are powerful/We are beautiful/We are divine or &:’////, at NYLA, featuring such collaborators as Mickey Mahar, Michelle Boulé, Jen Rosenblit, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Alex Rodabaugh. Italian artist Alessandro Sciarroni asks Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow? in his unique interpretation of Bavarian folk dance at NYLA. French director Joris Lacoste investigates multiple languages and human spoken expression in Suite n°2 in Florence Gould Hall. Also on the bill are Shezad Dawood’s “It was a time that was a time” exhibition at Pioneer Works, a photography show by Mazaccio & Drowilal in the FIAF Gallery, Olivia Bransbourg’s ICONOfly magazine, and Adrian Heathfield and André Lepecki’s three-day symposium, “Afterlives: The Persistence of Performance,” at FIAF and MoMA.

PATRICK VAN CAECKENBERGH

Patrick Van Caeckenbergh creates a kind of alternate Garden of Eden in his first exhibition at Lehmann Maupin (photo courtesy Lehmann Maupin)

Lehmann Maupin
201 Chrystie St. between Stanton & Rivington Sts.
Through August 21, free, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
212-254-0054
www.lehmannmaupin.com

Flanders-based Belgian artist Patrick Van Caeckenbergh has transformed Lehmann Maupin’s Lower East Side space into a forest of wonder, using his memory and his imagination, combining dazzling drawings of trees with a curious sculptural installation. A compulsive, and by some accounts reclusive, collector, cataloger, and tinkerer, Van Caeckenbergh spent seven years making graphite drawings of trees inspired by those in his garden, as well as other parts of Belgium, each one a unique Tree of Life or Tree of Knowledge. The black-and-white framed works in “Drawings of Old Trees during the wintry days 2007-2014” at first appear to be photographs but upon closer inspection are revealed to be obsessively intricate pencil and paint depictions of trees with thick trunks and endless leafless branches, enhanced by such fairy-tale elements as windows, doors, bells, and faces. In the center of the gallery is “THE PICTURESQUE HISTORY OF EMPTINESS, Les Oubliettes – The Oblivions – De Vergeetputten,” mirrored metal shelves that hold nearly three hundred dust-covered glass bell jars that once contained statues of saints but became so much detritus with a downturn in religious belief in Flanders. The vast emptiness seems to go on ad infinitum in the mirrors at the top and bottom, almost as if the Garden of Eden is now devoid of Adam and Eve, or anyone at all. Van Caeckenbergh, a collagist and amateur genealogist who has extensively investigated the digestive system of both animals and humans and, in “The Grave” (1986), paid tribute to six of his major influences — Joseph Beuys, Constantin Brancusi, Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, René Magritte, and Andy Warhol — includes a playful interactive bonus with “Het Muziekbos — The Musical Forest,” which he also calls “the nature guide to the Bialowieza primeval forest” in Poland, an antique table featuring a vaguely antique-looking hinged wooden box holding sixty-three small reproductions of his tree drawings on heavy card stock. People are invited to browse them, then curate their own mini-exhibition by choosing any two to place display stands on either side of the box.

OSGEMEOS: MIDNIGHT MOMENT AND MORE

Os Gêmeos reveal their working progress on Chrystie St. building (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

OSGEMEOS reveal their working progress on Chrystie St. building (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

MIDNIGHT MOMENT
Times Square
Nightly at 11:57 through August 31, free
www.timessquarenyc.org
osgemeos slideshow

It’s always ultra-exciting when OSGEMEOS (aka Os Gêmeos) come to town, adding their glorious art to the streets of the city. We’ve been following Brazilian twins Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo since 2005, when we photographed their small piece on a Lower East Side awning, which was followed by their spectacular 2006 Dreamland Artist Club mural on Stillwell Ave. in Coney Island and their equally celebrated 2009 mural on Houston St., which came back for a return engagement this past fall. In their beautifully captivating, visually striking work, OSGEMEOS create a fanciful fairy-tale world marked by unique characters and adorable little details and flourishes.

Os Gêmeos get animated in Times Square (photo courtesy Times Square Arts

OSGEMEOS get animated in Times Square (photo courtesy Times Square Arts)

They were recently in the city to unveil their Times Square Midnight Moment animated video, “Parallel Connection,” in which this setting comes to life on electronic billboards, storefront windows, and even the ball drop. It runs every night in August from 11:57 pm to midnight, adding dazzling color to the Great White Way.

Os Gêmeos add some musical flair to Second Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

OSGEMEOS add some musical flair to Second Ave. (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

While in New York, the twins added some street pieces on the Lower East Side, near their home gallery, Lehmann Maupin. Right next door to the space at 201 Chrystie St., OSGEMEOS have fashioned two playful works, collaborating with French artist JR, whose “Inside Out” participatory project dominated Times Square a few years ago. On the right, a graffiti artist balances on the shoulders of his partner, standing on a metal awning, as the top figure sprays the OSGEMEOS tag on a redbrick wall. Meanwhile, at the upper left, a caricature of JR, in his trademark hat, is on the fire escape landing, brushing a close-up black-and-white photograph of an eye (by JR) onto the building’s facade, a wry comment on all of us looking at the artwork. And on the corner of Second Ave. and Second St., on the side of a building that houses the Hare Krishna temple, OSGEMEOS has painted a giant hip-hop character, carrying a huge boombox as he emerges from the concrete wall like a rainbow superhero. New York City always looks and feels a little better when the twins come around, and this visit is no exception.

BEING RADICALLY HAPPY: PHAKCHOK RINPOCHE AND ERRIC SOLOMON

Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche will give a special talk with Erric Soloman on the Lower East Side on AUgust 14

Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche will give a special talk with Erric Solomon on the Lower East Side on August 14

Jewel and Lotus Ethical Pop-up Shop & Gallery
Mark Miller Gallery
92 Orchard St. between Allen & Essex Sts.
Friday, August 14, $25, advance RSVP recommended, reception at 6:15, presentation at 7:15
212-253-9479
markmillergallery.com
www.phakchokrinpoche.org

“Normally, we think when we have the right stuff in the right circumstances, happiness happens,” notes Phakchok Rinpoche. “But we really don’t have to depend on the stuff and the circumstances; we need only to make a slight yet radical shift. And then we will be happy no matter what.” Sounds good, but what, or who, is a rinpoche? “Rinpoche” is an honorific, applied to Tibetan Buddhist teachers, much like “Rabbi” is applied to Jewish ones. Tibetan Buddhism is getting more attention lately, and the Dalai Lama receives plenty of publicity. Buddhist references abound in popular culture, too (The Matrix, anyone? Or Jon Stewart’s “moment of Zen”?) but what does its philosophy actually say? On Friday night on the Lower East Side, a popular young Tibetan teacher and a former Silicon Valley executive will try to bring the concepts down to earth for the contemporary mind. Thirtysomething Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche, a member of a historic family of Tibetan teachers, is known for his sharp wit, realism, sense of humor, and accessible speaking. He received traditional Tibetan Buddhist training in the Nyingma tradition, and he’s been teaching throughout the world for the last ten years (as well as occasionally hopping on a Citi Bike to get around when he’s in town). There’s more info at his website and in his online teaching program, but you can hear him in person at this informal Friday evening gathering at the second annual Jewel and Lotus Ethical Pop-up Shop & Gallery, where he and Erric Solomon, a Silicon Valley software success who retired early and then spent three years on retreat in Tibet (and now runs whatmeditationreallyis.com), will be talking about how to be happy. And on a warm summer night on the Lower East Side, that seems like a very good thing to learn. (The pop-up shop and gallery show continue through August 23, featuring Rutongo Embroideries from Rwanda, calligraphy by Marlow Brooks, and items from more than twenty ethically conscious brands. There will also be a fashion party on August 20.)

A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT: SPENCER FINCH AT THE MORGAN

Spencer Finch installation sheds colorful new light on Morgan interior (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Morgan Library
225 Madison Ave. at 36th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through August 23, $12-$18 (free Friday nights from 7:00 to 9:00)
212-685-0008
www.themorgan.org
a certain slant of light slideshow

“There’s a certain Slant of Light, / Winter Afternoons — / That oppresses, like the Heft / Of Cathedral Tunes —,” Emily Dickinson wrote in one of her most famous poems, touching on depression, religion, and humanity’s sense of being overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe. New Haven-born, Brooklyn-based artist Spencer Finch, who uses color in his environmental, site-specific pieces, references Dickinson’s poem in “A Certain Slant of Light: Spencer Finch at the Morgan,” an intoxicating installation that breathes new life into the institution’s Gilbert Court, where visitors can take a break with some food or drink and listen to live music on Friday evenings. Inspired by the Morgan’s renowned collection of medieval, illuminated Books of Hours, Finch has placed colored gels over the windows (including in the elevator) and hung glass panes from the ceiling, which pick up and reflect sunlight to cast rainbow glows across the space. But it’s more than just beautiful reds, blues, greens, yellows, purples, etc., dangling overhead and lighting up the wood-paneled floor; it is also a calendar, like the Book of Hours, referencing the fall harvest, spring planting, religious feasts, and even Isaac Newton’s birthday. Unique use of color with a scientific/technological edge is a key part of Finch’s oeuvre; his “The River That Flows Both Ways” on the High Line consists of colored glass panes based on individual pixels from photographs he took of the Hudson River, and for the recent Creative Time “Drifting in Daylight” group show in Central Park he contributed “Sunset (Central Park),” a truck that served ice cream whose color changed based on the heat of the sun. “A Certain Slant of Light” opened in June 2014, and it has been fascinating watching it morph with the turn of the seasons, but there’s nothing quite like seeing it on a bright and sunny summer day, casting its charming glow for all to see.

SEWARD JOHNSON IN NEW YORK: SELECTIONS FROM THE RETROSPECTIVE

Seward Johnson reimagines the characters from Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” as tourists in “God Bless America” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

SUMMER ARTS ON THE PLAZAS
Garment District Plazas
Broadway, Between 41st & 36th Sts.
Through September 15, free
garmentdistrictnyc.com
online slideshow

For many years, my wife and I have argued over an outdoor sculpture on East Thirty-Fourth St., J. Seward Johnson’s “The Right Light,” a bronze statue of a bearded man standing determinedly in front of an easel, palette in hand, painting an outdoor scene inspired by a mural in a small plaza next to the Affinia Dumont Hotel. While I find the piece, part of the octogenarian’s “Man on the Street” series, sort of fun, my wife considers it horrifyingly insipid. However, we completely agree on “Seward Johnson in New York: Selections from the Retrospective,” a garish collection of brightly colored lifelike tableaux that will be on view along the Garment District Plazas on Broadway through September 15, part of the Summer Arts on the Plazas program. A condensed version of his much larger, record-breaking show at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey (which was founded by Johnson in 1992), the Manhattan version features eighteen almost hyperrealistic sculptures from three of Johnson’s series: “Celebrating the Familiar” (1987), “Beyond the Frame” (2003), and “Icons Revisited” (2011). In “Holding Out,” a woman looks out blankly, carrying a bag of groceries. “A Turn of the Century” brings to three-dimensional life the man and woman from Renoir’s “Dance at Bougival,” while “Eye of the Beholder,” in which a couple sits at a table sharing a moment, a waiter close by, is based on Manet’s “Chez le Père Lathuillle.” In “Things to Do,” a woman on a bench is making out her “to do” list. “God Bless America” adds a suitcase to Grant Wood’s “American Gothic,” and, for some unknown reason, in “Return Visit,” Abraham Lincoln is lifting his hat to a sweatered nerd reading the Gettysburg Address. “Forever Marilyn” re-creates the famous scene of Marilyn Monroe’s dress being blown up her body on a grate in The Seven Year Itch; in 2011, a virtualtourist.com poll named a twenty-six-foot-tall version of the sculpture the worst public art in the world. Perhaps the most realistic thematic sculpture is “Photo Shoot,” in which a man kneels down to take a picture of his wife, son, and dog; many people — primarily tourists — will be taking pictures of their family members (and dogs) within this installation (in addition to the others), a kind of wry self-comment on the exhibition itself. For more than fifty years, Johnson, a philanthropist whose grandfather was one of the founders of Johnson & Johnson and who is first cousins with Michael Douglas — the Oscar-winning actor posted many photos on Facebook of himself at the Grounds for Sculpture retrospective — has been attempting to capture a heartwarming aspect of America, evoking the one so beautifully rendered by Norman Rockwell in paintings and on magazine covers, but these works feel more tacky and simplistic than Rockwell’s; the precise realism of the 1987 series in particular extends to the hair and clothing styles, making them overtly dated and charmless. Perhaps they would have fit in better in Times Square. But who are we to complain? People seem to love them, so go ahead and snap away.